Christian Bale's Together California foster care village officially opened in Palmdale, California on Friday, according to ABC 7. The 11,000-square-foot community includes 12 furnished homes, among them two studio apartments reserved for young people transitioning out of the foster care system.
The project is designed to address a persistent problem in foster care: siblings entering the system together but not always staying together. Bale, who played Batman in "The Dark Knight" before hanging up the Batsuit in 2012, described the mission in stark terms.
"It's our job to turn their heartbreak and their pain into love and hope and a sense of future," Bale told ABC 7.
Los Angeles has the highest population of children in foster care in the United States, with more than 30,000 children currently in the system. Together California Executive Director Tim McCormick said the village was built to meet that need directly.
"A place where everyone is welcomed, a place that keeps families together, a place that creates community, a place where you can find hope in the most challenging of times," McCormick said in a statement to ABC 7.
Bale and his wife, Sibi Blazic, have two children, Luka and Rex Bale. McCormick told SF Gate in 2025 that becoming a parent pushed Bale to take action. "[Bale] was like, we got to do better," McCormick said.
Bale and McCormick partnered in 2022 to launch Together California. The initiative was funded entirely through donations, with the Austrian American Council West helping raise nearly $9 million toward the effort. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger also played an influential role in getting the project off the ground.
With the ribbon-cutting now complete, organizers said residents will begin moving into the community next month.
Photo: jbach, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
